The Shifters (16 page)

C
aitlin walked through the raucous neon carnival of Bourbon Street, cloaked in her glamour. On some level she knew without a doubt it was a stupid thing to do, an impulsive act prompted by anger, spite, resentment, payback…and that nagging feeling of inadequacy that never left her, the need to prove her self, to be worthy of her position, her charge, her family, her city.

But also, she could not help thinking, could not
stop
thinking, that Ryder and Jagger were simply wrong. It would do no earthly good for them to go out on the streets looking for these creatures, these entities. There were only two occasions when any of
them had been in direct contact with the lead walk-in: in the séance with Danny, and when Armand had talked to her, just before attacking her.

And the séance was the only time they had been able to actually
summon
the thing. Danny had known exactly how—and where—to go, and he had done it within minutes.

So it only made sense that if they were to catch the lead entity, what they needed was not an army of Others patrolling the streets or encircling the city with a magic spell. What they needed was Danny.

And that was her plan. She would get Danny, bring him back to the compound, and they would summon the entity through him, with him. Ryder could finish the ritual that had been interrupted the night of the séance, and once the thing had been cast into outer darkness, they could work on protecting the rest of the city.

Simple.

Bourbon was packed, of course, this being the night before Halloween, so many people in costume that the date seemed to be a technicality. But Caitlin knew that whatever looked like excess now would be exponentially excessive by tomorrow night.

There was already a Halloween feeling hanging over the street, though, and Caitlin didn't like it. She preferred to celebrate Samhain with quiet, restorative rituals in the woods, cloaked in soft night, under
the pure moon, to celebrate god and goddess and the earth with dancing, blessings, healing charms. A far cry from the throngs screaming to be heard over “Psycho Killer” and “Werewolves of London” and “The Monster Mash” and “Thriller,” all blasting from the open doors and windows of various clubs.

Although she could see some charming, playful costumes—fairies, Harry Potter characters, silver-screen stars—there were far too many that Caitlin found disturbing: serial killers from slasher movies, “victims” with fake hatchets seemingly buried in their heads. Zombies were particularly prevalent this year, some cultural trend that Caitlin was unable to wrap her mind around.

Why people had to concentrate on the negative on this night, she'd never been able to understand. On a pagan holy day, especially the equinoxes and solstices, there was such a power for magnification and manifestation. Who in their right mind would want to manifest an ax in the head?

And perhaps she was simply still shaken from the demon attack, but tonight Bourbon, with its cacophony of music and kaleidoscope of lights, seemed to take all the ugliness of Halloween and magnify it—the flaming jack-o'-lanterns, the spiders, the serial killers. And of course, there was the alcohol. Always the alcohol, and there were other substances, other highs, in evidence here, as well—revelers so stoned
their eyes were dead as they stumbled past like the zombies some of them were dressed as. Every drunk tourist seemed malevolent. Exactly the circumstances Ryder had been talking about, the danger…

The crowd had become so thick that Caitlin's feet had slowed almost to a standstill; the intersection was swarmed with people in all four directions, and no one was moving. So far it had not been an issue to brush against people on the crowded streets; no one had freaked at coming into contact with an essentially invisible person, because there were so many other people about that any time Caitlin had accidentally bumped into a passerby, there was always someone else—someone visible—right beside her who could have made the contact.

But now she was surrounded so closely that she was being pressed on all sides. And the pressure was only getting stronger, as the crowd was surging forward in all directions, a crushing rush…and there were so many tall people around her that she was no longer able even to see anything. And more than that, there was a feeling, an ominous feeling, of threat.

Feeling desperate, Caitlin swiveled her head…and with a dawning horror realized that every person around her was menacing…every one with disturbing eyes…the black, malevolent eyes she had seen in Danny during the séance, and in Armand just before he shifted into the cat demon. And they were all
staring at her. They could
see
her—even through her glamour.

These revelers were not fake zombies. They were the real thing. Possessed.

As Caitlin opened her mouth to scream, a cloak was thrown over her head and pulled tight around her face. Darkness descended, and strong, cruel arms grabbed her around the waist and shoulders, and shuffled her forward.

No one heard her scream over the clashing layers of music.

The cluster of zombies moved in a solid group, with Caitlin pinioned between arms and legs and torsos in the center, barreling forward and driving through the crowd in front of them, which parted slowly, like a sluggish wave, and before Caitlin could think, they had swept her into what she somehow sensed was an alley and through a waiting open door.

 

“She'll never stay put,” Ryder worried aloud as vampire and shapeshifter strode, tall and long-legged, through the crowds on Bourbon, toward Bons Temps. The people were packed wall-to-wall—it was only the combined intimidating presence and grim looks of purpose of the two men that cleared them a path through the costumed revelers.

“Don't worry about Caitlin. She's a handful, but Fiona will take care of her,” Jagger assured him.

“I don't doubt Fiona can handle just about anything,” Ryder answered.
Everything except her sister.
I
can't even handle her sister.

The tight feeling in his stomach intensified. He stared out over the crowds before them. “It might as well be Halloween,” he said aloud. A human would not have been able to hear him in the raucous crowd, but a vampire could literally hear a pin drop, even with a din like this.

A muscle jumped in Jagger's jawline, and though he said nothing, Ryder knew the vampire had the same fear he did: that there was no guarantee the entities would wait until the next evening to descend on the street.

Ryder tried to focus on the plan. They were headed toward Bons Temps. Much as Ryder hated to admit it, the only solid connection they had to the lead walk-in was Caitlin's druggie psychic shapeshifter friend, Danny. He hadn't wanted to tell Caitlin, but it was clear that their best bet to trap and bind the lead entity, to perform the exorcism that he had been unable to complete the night of the séance, was to convince the young psychic to do another sitting.

Caitlin might have been the best person to do that, but Ryder thought that, shifter to shifter, he might just be able to
make
it happen. Especially if he mentioned that Caitlin had been attacked again.

The thought made his blood rise.

He knew she was furious with him for leaving her. But he would risk her wrath to keep her safe. He would be damned if he would lose someone else…

Someone else I love
…to the walk-ins.

Love. Yes, he really had thought that. Really did feel it.

He would do whatever he had to do to protect Caitlin MacDonald. And her sisters, too.

 

Inside—
a warehouse?
—was worse than outside. Heavy doors clanged shut, and there was a sudden, crashing silence, broken only by the inhuman shuffling and labored breathing of her captors, who held her with a mass of arms and hands.

Hooded, blinded, Caitlin ordered her screaming nerves to still and forced herself to take notice of her surroundings. Caitlin could smell must and mold, which, since Katrina, had lingered pervasively in almost every building in the Quarter. There was a wetness to the air, as well.

She could hear only faintly through the thick wool cloak that encompassed her, but the sounds seemed echoey, as if they were in a very large room, a high-ceilinged room. They didn't seem to shift direction to avoid any furniture as the cluster of zombies shuffled her on. She was as stiff-legged as they were, frozen into the sheer numbness of terror.

There was a creaking that could only be a door opening, and a rush of air that she could feel on her
calves, the only part of her body not covered by the cloak. She was jostled through into another room—even in her terror, she recognized the sensation of crossing a threshold, the opening feeling that moving through a doorway evoked. And it was a large one, too, tall double doors, she thought.

There was something instantly different about the atmosphere here; still the mustiness, the dampness, but mixed with a different smell entirely. Sweat and sulfur…ammonia…

And there were other people in the room, too. The hairs on Caitlin's arms lifted as she realized…there were not just other people in the room but
many
others. She could hear breathing, feel their presence, but there were no words, no sounds but their breath.

Dead? Zombies?

No. Drugged. The bite of ammonia—it was the acrid smell of crack.

Her captors inched forward, then stopped, and Caitlin could feel some of them step away, as if they had reached their destination. She felt adrenaline spike through her veins.

Someone pulled the cloak off her, and she gasped in air, blinking quickly to force her eyes to adjust to the darkness around her.

It was dim, windowless except for a few narrow slits high above, a huge warehouse space with unfin
ished walls, intricate systems of pipes and beams high above, and obvious mold stains on the wood. A shell of a building that had been rotting since Katrina. Hazy smoke floated in the air, and she realized why she had been feeling the presence of so many bodies. This was a crack house. The half-present feeling came from unconsciousness.

Caitlin stared around her through the hypnotic drifting smoke, her nostrils burning from the stinging smell of crack, and felt a surge of horror at being surrounded by addicts. She had a sudden flash of in sight: the Others might not be human, but these street junkies were truly the undead.

A figure stepped out of the darkness, moving sinuously toward her. The other creatures shuffled around her in a mindless kind of anticipation, and Caitlin went light-headed with fear. She instinctively stepped backward…and felt the pressure of a body behind hers, several bodies, the circle of mindless souls who had brought her into this pit. Then the dim light from the few high windows illuminated the face of the figure standing before her and the features were so familiar that Caitlin had a wave of mind-numbing relief: Danny. That pale, young skin, shimmering dark hair…and those bottomless eyes.

Caitlin's relief dissolved into terror as Danny smiled, a smile that didn't reach his eyes and that was not his own.

The voice that hissed through his mouth confirmed her worst fear.

It was the voice of the walk-in.

“Welcome, Keeper.”

 

Ryder and Jagger were crossing Toulouse Street, approaching Bons Temps, when Ryder felt a scream.

He froze midstride.

Jagger looked at him sharply. “What?”

“There was…a scream….”

Jagger looked understandably perplexed. This was Bourbon Street on a Friday night. People were screaming all around them, screaming to make themselves heard, screaming along with the music, or just screaming to scream.

“In the astral,” Ryder said, and his heart contracted in pain and terror. “It's Cait.”

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Jagger said instantly, and meant it.

Ryder forced himself to breathe, to focus through his concern. “Call the Keepers. Get back to them. See if they have any idea where she's gone.”

“She may be there, you know—” Jagger began, an attempt at reassurance.

“She's not,” Ryder cut him off, and the vampire didn't even try to protest further but lifted his iPhone.

“Go back to them. If there's anything they can do, do it, but keep them safe,” Ryder told him.

“What will you do?” Jagger paused, the phone still in his hand.

“Find her shapeshifter friends. Find
her,
” Ryder said, and he shifted into his subtle body and then was gone in a rush of black wings.

T
he volume inside Bons Temps was approaching apocalyptic as Ryder touched down on the sidewalk in the bird's body and instantly shifted back to himself. He strode in off the street and muscled his way through the pressed-together, sweating, undulating patrons. He scanned the stage. The band was a ragtag combination of musicians, typical Bourbon Street, hard partiers with impressive music skills.

The long-haired psychic, Danny, was not on stage, but the front man was instantly recognizable. The anorexic musician's build and cocky swagger would have been a good hint, but the subtly shifting facial features were a dead giveaway. Case. Even in his
state of high anxiety and focus, Ryder had to admire the kid's control. It took a lot of skill to hold a partial shift like that just on its own, much less while performing, and no doubt high on something—there was something just a bit too manic about his frenzied performance.

Even so, Case lasered in on him, noticing him in the crowd, electric-blue eyes sizzling from the stage, measuring, calculating.

Ryder used the connection to project an intent, not a request, but a demand. He saw Case receive it, flinch back slightly, and then those eyes went icy, antagonistic. For a moment Ryder thought he might have gone too far, but then there was a flickering, a shift in the current vibrating between them, and the jolt of antagonism lessened. Somehow the younger man had gotten a deeper message: the urgency of Ryder's presence.

Ryder held Case's eyes, then turned and moved through the crowd toward the back courtyard.

The night was dark and humid, misty with a diffuse haze that blurred the neon lights of the bar signs, creating an altered-world space appropriate to the occasion.

Ryder paced the slate stones of the courtyard, unable to keep still. In all likelihood Caitlin had been gone for more than an hour, since the moment he and Jagger had left the sisters' compound. He cursed him
self for his stupidity; how could he not have known this about her by now? He could have chained her, and she would have found a way to follow. He only prayed that he would have the opportunity
not
to make the same mistake again.

In truth, as a creature of the nineteenth century, he had not caught up to the vastness of change in the feminine consciousness. They were equals now. He was a fool not to have absorbed that.

He had wounded Caitlin's sense of duty, her feminine pride, and she had reacted in a completely predictable way that meant he could lose her forever. The city could lose her forever. The world could lose her forever. An irredeemable loss.

There was no sound behind him, but he sensed a disturbance in the astral, the presence of another shifter. He turned sharply.

Case stood in the passageway from the back door to the courtyard, slouch-hipped, arrogant.

The two men stared at each other through the dark; then Case sauntered forward, all Louisiana cool, removing a joint and lighter from an inside pocket and firing up the lighter. As he started to raise the flame, Ryder stepped forward with one long stride and plucked the joint from his lips, tossed it aside.

Case's face rippled with rage.

“What the—” the younger man began in a fury.

Ryder held up a hand. “Cait's in trouble,” he said, cutting Case off.

The musician's face didn't change, but Ryder felt the disturbance in his subtle body; it was hard not to.

“Ask me, she was in trouble the minute she met you, Ace.” Case pulled out a pack of Marlboros and removed one, lit up. Ryder winced at the thought of all that potential, swirling down the toilet of addiction.

It was hard not to think of himself at that age.

But all of that was a diversion so that he could not, for a moment, think about what Case had just said. Which he knew in his heart to be true.

Ryder tried to center himself, to breathe. “She's disappeared,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “My guess is she's gone to find your mutual friend.”

“And?” Case said maddeningly.

Ryder held his temper. “It's very dangerous for her out there right now. Dangerous for anyone, but especially for her and her sisters.”

“And this has
what
to do with me?”

“Don't bullshit me. You care for her. I know you do.” Ryder stared straight into Case's eyes. “Regardless of how you hurt her, you care.”

“Who's bullshitting who, shifter?” Case smiled, a crazy cracked watermelon grin that didn't quite make it to his eyes. “How
I
hurt her is nothing compared
to what damage
you're
about to do. At least I never pretended to be anything but what I am. I never promised anything, in word or deed. Can you say the same thing?”

Ryder was struck dumb by the young shifter's insight.

“Right—tell me you didn't promise
everything
, even if you never said a word.” Case waited until he saw that the whole truth had sunk deep into Ryder's bones, and then he dragged on his cigarette and exhaled, shrugging.

“But don't feel too bad about it. It's our nature, after all, isn't it? And who knows that better than sweet Cait?”

Ryder felt sick with the truth of it.

Case's face hardened. “Well, maybe she went out there in that crazy little way she has—because she doesn't care what happens to her. She knows you'll be gone on the next train, or tradewind. I know Sister Goldenhair. She'll go out fighting, save everyone she can in the battle—but when her light goes out…”

He removed the cigarette from his mouth and let it fall to the slate flooring to explode in glowing ash, then crushed the butt out.

“So no,” he said softly. “Don't you be guilt-tripping me. I'm the small sin here, shifter. The lesser of two evils.”

Ryder reached out and grabbed the lapels of Case's
leather jacket, and in that moment, he could have ripped the other man to shreds. But he forced himself to breathe, to steady.

“So we've both done her dirt. Are you going to do something about it? Because
I
am.”

He felt Case's fury, and suddenly he was holding nothing. The young shifter was standing several feet back from him. He'd folded, very skillfully. From the new distance, he stared at Ryder stonily. “Difference between you and me, Ace, is I don't pretend to be a hero.”

“Cait doesn't need a hero. She needs help.”

“Might as well let her go. You'll only end up hurting her, because you can never settle for just one life—or girl. That's a shifter's nature, and you know it just as well as I do. You're already looking toward the new city, the new body. It's our nature to shift…shifter.”

Ryder summoned every ounce of control he had. “Play the cynic all you want, but I know the truth about
you
, too. You may be a shifter and a junkie, but you're capable of loyalty toward your friends. Cait's in danger, and your pal Danny, too, and I think you're coming with me.”

Case stared at him for such a long moment Ryder thought he'd lost, and then the young shifter spoke.
“That would imply you knew where to find them, and we both know you don't.”

Ryder said, “No. But you do.”